Blockstream Sends First Litecoin Lightning Microtransaction

Litecoin has sent its first Lightning Network (LN) enabled micropayment, with 0.00000001 LTC “settled in under a second.”

The payment, which demonstrates the ability of LN to provide near-instant cost-effective transactions, was sent between parties in Zurich, Switzerland and San Francisco.

Blockstream was behind the implementation, releasing a dedicated summary of the events which included a live video of the transaction itself.

“Christian Decker of Blockstream made the first full, secure Lightning payment on a non-test network, and the first Lightning payment on Litecoin, sending a microscopic payment not normally possible or economic on a blockchain, fully settled in a fraction of a second,” the company wrote.

“Christian patched the Blockstream Lightning implementation to work on Litecoin, and two hours after Segregated Witness activated on Litecoin, he opened a Lightning channel between lightning clients in Zurich and San Francisco worth about 1.3 US cents.”

Litecoin’s value has stabilized at around $32 since SegWit activated, having shot up in the weeks prior as investors sensed its future was clear.

The successful activation has renewed calls for Bitcoin to follow suit sooner rather than later, this nonetheless remaining a slow and convoluted process.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s mempool hit a new all-time high earlier on Friday.